Encaustic Painting Blog

This artist conversation features encaustic painter, mixed-media artist and instructor Andrea Bird. Photo of Andrea Bird by Andreea Muscurel A personal note…It was Andrea Bird who first introduced me to encaustic painting. I have taken many workshops with her from 2005 – 2018. Much of what I share on the All Things Encaustic Blog, I first learned from Andrea. By way of introduction…Andrea and her artist husband Daniel Beirne established The Hive encaustic studio, at the Alton Mill in Caledon, Ontario where they ran workshops and displayed encaustic art. They also started Waxworks Encaustic Supplies to sell ...

You're going to wonder why you've been doing photo transfer the hard way! The parchment paper photo transfer method means less burnishing and there's no paper to dissolve so less chance of rubbing too hard and ruining your transfer. How to do a Parchment Paper Encaustic Transfer You'll want to use a toner-based laser printer. Put the parchment paper image-side down on the smooth encaustic surface. Rub with a spoon. The ink will transfer from the paper to the wax surface. Before you begin, prepare your image. Use an image editing program to flip the image so ...

Damar resin has long been the hardener of choice to combine with beeswax in encaustic medium recipes. Because of its high melting point, it aids in making a more robust painting than pure beeswax and allows for vigorous buffing over a curing period to bring the work to a shine. A downside can be that due to its organic nature, damar has been known to yellow over time. This may happen in varying degrees over months, years or decades, though artists who combine pigments with their medium will typically never notice this. For those who rely on ...

I had an interesting chat with a group of encaustic painters last month about reusing boards. Being stuck at home and having to rely on delivery for our art supplies, we are getting better at reusing what we already have in our studios rather than always buying new. If you're like me, you have a stack of boards in your studio---some are old paintings, others were experiments or demo boards in a workshop. You can rework an encaustic painting—adding new layers on top—but sometimes you just want to start over from scratch. If you have a wood ...

This artist conversation features encaustic painter, embroiderer, and mixed-media artist, Ava Roth. I'm happy to chat with Ava about her work and introduce her to all of you. I think it is safe to say that all encaustic painters have a deep respect for bees. I'm sure that you'll be as excited as I was to learn about Ava Roth's incredible Bee Colony Collaboration project. View Ava's Website | Follow Ava on Instagram My Conversation with Artist Ava Roth Welcome, Ava! Thanks so much for taking the time to share with us about your artistic inspiration and ...

The information in this post comes from Nicholas Wilton's Art2Life and Creative Visionary Programs and is published with permission. A significant shift in art-making for me over the last few years is that I now work on a group of paintings, instead of just one at a time. This process—which I picked up from the Creative Visionary Program with Nicholas Wilton—has made all the difference in the world. I'm more productive, the work comes easier, I don't over-work one, and all of the paintings in the series relate to each other. Nicholas Wilton, the founder of Art2Life ...

I started 2020 on a high. I was convinced that this was the year I was going to have a regular art practice and that I was going to make art that was better than anything I had done before --- and then COVID came along and I lost all my momentum. I'm sure that I'm not alone in this. For close to nine months I didn't go into my studio. I felt like a miserable failure when I looked at others posting painting after painting on Instagram. I hope that this post can help you next ...